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If you’re like me, you can turn on your iPod and keep listening until you realize that you didn’t realize the music was on.

The music turns into background noise as you go about your life, from exercising to working at your job. But by the time you turn it off, it might be too late for your hearing.

I was reminded of this in two instances this week, and I started thinking about how my hearing might have been hurt by listening too long through my earbuds or earphones.

The first instance came in the form of "The Year In Health" package in the Dec. 1 edition of Time magazine. It’s an interesting piece because it breaks down issues in easy-to-read nuggets. When I got to "I" in the alphabetical listing, there was "iPod," and I had to read on.

The statistics cited are fascinating and scary. There are 220 million iPod users. If those people don’t want to damage their hearing, they can listen to music at 80 percent volume for 90 minutes, or 70 percent volume for 4.5 hours.

"At full volume, you risk hearing loss after just 5 minutes of listening," the Time article states.

I had already adjusted my iPod to a lower main volume setting, and I’ll listen to that at almost the lowest level. I don’t know how long that would allow me to listen, but sometimes I find myself not thinking about it until one ear starts to tingle.

Not good.

That’s when the earbuds come off and I give my ears a long rest.

Sometimes I decide to not listen through my earbuds so I won’t do further damage to my ears. But listening is so tempting, especially if I’m wearing my Bose headphones – they make the music crisp, clear and beautiful to the ear.

I remember interviewing an ear doctor when I was working in New Mexico and he told me that it’s OK to listen to loud music for short periods of time, but make it too long and you start to damage your hearing. Ever had the ringing in your ears after listening to music? That’s a sign, he said.

I was surprised when I entered his office that he had Creedence Clearwater Revival cranked up on his Bose stereo system. I wondered how an ear doctor could set an example by playing such music. The interview gave me the answer, and I’ve always wondered if he was playing the music to make a point.

At the time, I was working on a story about the cars that have booming bass in them, enough to rattle the cars around. People were complaining about them being annoying to other drivers, but I was curious about the hearing of the people inside the car.

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you can feel your ears being overloaded. I felt that earlier this year as I left the Franz Ferdinand show in Tucson. And I remember the feeling well after seeing Sonic Youth in the early 1990s. My ears felt heavy and the sounds dulled.

Of course, if you have questions about how much you should listen to loud music, you should see an ear specialist to get the answers.

The second instance that reminded me of this topic was hearing a promotion for a National Public Radio story about how we listen to music differently. In the promotional, a young man who lives in a big city (likely New York) said he puts on his earbuds and walks the streets, gets on the train and then goes about the rest of the day with them on. Do you find yourself doing that? How about your son, daughter or loved one doing that?

Hearing is critical to many ways that we comunicate. And it is important that we don’t impair our hearing so much that we have a generation of people who are hard of hearing at an earlier age than normal.

Unfortunately, we are likely headed that way already.

ONLINE NOTES

- To see the Time’s "The Year In Health 2009," visit http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1942543,00.html.

- To hear the NPR story regarding how we listen to music now, visit http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121023882&ft=1&f=1039.